Engineered Wooden Flooring

Wooden flooring has become very popular in modern buildings. Wood is a good material for flooring due to its elasticity and flexibility. Engineered wooden flooring is made of two or more wood pieces put together to form a plank.

The layer that is visible when installed is called the lamella, while the inner part that provides stability is called the core. Sometimes it is easy to confuse other common engineered floors as engineered wooden flooring. This is especially with vinyl floors which are just plastics with wooden patterns, laminates or veneers that have very thin wooden layers for the top while the core is made of other material.

Types of engineered wooden flooring

There are several types of engineered wooden flooring products;

• Particle based –these include oriented or laminated strand boards. Oriented strand boards are made from pressing shredded wood strips into a resin which is oriented crosswise and pressed in multiple layers. Laminated strand board uses veneer chips instead of shredded wood.
• Glulam- this product usually comes from the Scandinavian countries or from the yellow pine in the U.S. in making this engineered wooden flooring; we get beams, girders and trusses from pressing together many layers of thin wooden strips together, in a horizontal fashion.
• L-joist- this product comes from laminated veneer lumber and is made up of two components; the flange and the web. It is able to withstand bigger loads than un-engineered as the shapes setting the flange around the web can be manipulated to be more structurally strong.

Installing engineered wooden flooring

There are different methods by which to set up engineered wooden flooring;

• Tongue and groove- grooves are made on the side and end of a plank while the other plank has a protruding wooden edge (tongue). The tongue goes into the groove and fit tightly in a formation that is not visible.
• Glue down method- a trowel is used to spread a layer of adhesive, then the flooring is laid on top and pressed or hammered onto it.
• Click method- this is similar to the groove and tongue with the difference being that no adhesive is needed as the joints are very tightly formed. The tongue and groove comes together by hammering.

Advantages of engineered wooden flooring

Using engineered wooden flooring has numerous advantages; it is easy to install and remove if need be, It comes in different shapes and pattern for different building uses, it can be adapted to different room uses for example bathrooms, it is cheap to install as the labour costs are low, it usually comes in finished form so there is no need to do any other finishing or sanding, and finally one can choose according to tastes and preferences in different building colouring.

Engineered wooden flooring is very versatile as can be seen from the numerous uses it has today and the more people who prefer it over traditional wood. It will definitely rise even higher in popularity in coming days.